He spent his childhood in Normandy, where he developed an early taste for drawing and sold his caricatures through a dealer, who also exhibited works by Eugène Boudin. This friendship was decisive: the young Claude Monet left Normandy for Paris, where he studied art at the university and then in the studio of the Ecole Impériale des Beaux-Arts. His meeting with Frédéric Bazille and Alfred Sisley would be key to the development of his art, giving rise to canvasses such as Women in the Garden (1867).

In 1872, he painted his now famous Impression, Sunrise, a canvas that would give its name to the Impressionist movement, but it is often by his many Water Lilies (1898, 1899, 1905, 1906) that Claude Monet is best remembered. These works of a recognised delicacy and beauty are still admired all over the world today. The gardens at Giverny, where Claude Monet was able to create his own beauty, are truly enchanting.